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November
2006
Volume 1
Copyright
© 2006 Queue, Inc.
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Due to the amount of research we were able to report on this month, we were forced to cut this newsletter back substantially in order to facilitate the email process. A more extensive, complete version of this month's newsletter can be found here: http://www.queuenews.com/NewslettersNov06/EduResrchReportNov.html
For back issues of this newsletter, as well as current and back issues of our state newsletters and U.S. Education News, please go to: http://www.queuenews.com/
For the latest education research news on a daily basis, please visit our Education Research Report Weblog: http://queuenews.typepad.com/education_research_report/
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The following letters were sent in
response to the earlier October 2006 newsletter articles. Back issues of this
e-newsletter can be found here: http://www.queuenews.com/EduResearchRpt.html.
To the Editor:
I noticed you mentioned two recent NCES study in the latest email.
[See: PUBLIC SCHOOLS ON PAR WITH PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN READING AND MATH: http://www.queuenews.com/NewslettersOct06/EduResrchReportOct.html#par and NAEP CHARTER SCHOOL PILOT STUDY: http://www.queuenews.com/NewslettersOct06/EduResrchReportOct.html#PILOT]
Perhaps you might be interested in one of our studies.....
See: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG06-02-PetersonLlaudet.pdf
It received a lot of coverage, to the point that the IES commissioner addressed their own study in terms of our critique (see Ed Week's coverage of this).
Your readers might want to know some of this....
Best wishes,
AMW
Antonio M. Wendland
Associate Director
Program on Education Policy and Governance
J. F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
To the Editor:
Future Topics need to include discussions of the impact of special ed./ ED-BD placements and "equity" legislation & funding on enrollment in public schools & the commensurate increase in enrollment in private institutions. Our nation needs an open exploration of how the mid-range teachable child's least restrictive educational environment is being powerfully impacted by courts and "special" education departments.
Response:
We don’t do the research, we just report on it.
Ed
HOW MEDICAL INACCURACIES, FEAR, AND SHAME IN FEDERALLY FUNDED ABSTINENCE-ONLY-UNTIL-MARRIAGE PROGRAMS PUT OUR YOUTH AT RISK
SIECUS Releases Review of Commonly Used Curricula
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) has released its latest reviews of three abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula used in federally funded programs. Although the programs vary, these reviews document that the curricula are riddled with messages of fear and shame, gender stereotypes, and medical misinformation that put young people at risk.
"These reviews provide an excellent portrait of the types of abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula used in programs funded by the federal government," said William Smith, vice president for public policy at SIECUS. "We hope this information will give educators, policymakers, community leaders, and parents the true picture of what our nation's young people are, and in many cases, are not learning with respect to their health," Smith continued.
SIECUS reviewed WAIT (Why Am I Tempted?) Training, Why kNOw, and Heritage Keepers. These curricula are taught in federally-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs located in more than a dozen states across the nation, including, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee among others. Since FY 2001, the programs that use these curricula have received more then $6 million.
Examples of the messages included in the curricula are as follows:
Why kNOw:
WAIT Training:
Heritage Keepers:
New research published by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/ViewAwardPage.aspx?AwardId=3544
reviews the successful behavior change studies of the past 25 years and concludes that fear-based health messages are ineffective. This supports what public health experts have long known about abstinence-only-until-marriage programs; no sound study exists that shows these programs have any long-term beneficial impact on young people's sexual behavior. More than a dozen states have completed evaluations of their federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, and still none have found the abstinence-only-until-marriage approach to be effective. Recent studies are instead showing that virginity pledges, common components of these programs, may be potentially harmful to young people.
In contrast, numerous studies and evaluations published in peer-reviewed literature suggest that comprehensive education about sexuality, programs that teach teens about both abstinence and contraception, are an effective strategy to help young people delay their initiation of sexual intercourse. "SIECUS believes in time-tested and proven evidence that finds teaching abstinence alongside other issues, not in isolation from them, provides the best long term outcomes for youth," said Smith. The ESRC's research agrees, determining that "positive, informative strategies which help people set specific health and environmental goals are far more effective when it comes to encouraging behavior change than negative strategies which employ messages of fear, guilt or regret."
"Curricula that instill fear and shame in young people, disparage condom use, perpetuate gender stereotypes, and contain anti-abortion messages have no place in any program for school-aged young people, let alone programs sanctioned by the federal government, and paid for with hard-earned tax dollars," Smith said.
Over the past six years—since President Bush came into office—almost $800 million in federal money has been spent on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. President Bush is seeking an additional $204 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.
"We hope exposing policymakers to the messages included in many of the abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula will encourage them to rethink their commitment to these unproven and harmful programs, and support a more comprehensive approach," Smith said.
Read the Full Curricula Reviews on SIECUS' Community Action Kit website:
http://www.communityactionkit.org/curricula_reviews.html
The research brought the following response:
…The NEA-SEICUS report slams the programs for encouraging students to have sex only after marriage, to be concerned about the failure rates of condoms and other forms of birth control to dress modestly, and to know about the basics of fetal development.
However, a study conducted by a University of Pennsylvania researcher in August found that teaching abstinence education to young teenagers in public schools reduces their sexual behavior. The study found that abstinence helped delay the starting point at which teenagers begin having sexual relations.
The Penn researchers studied 662 African-American students in 6th and 7th grade from inner-city schools in Philadelphia.
They found that those who were taught abstinence were less likely to have had sexual relations in a 24 month followup compared to those who were taught about safer sex through the use of condoms but didn't mention abstinence.
Meanwhile, a June 2005 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reveals that abstinence education works.
According to the interim report, teens who participated in abstinence programs had an increased awareness of the potential consequences of sexual activity before marriage, thought more highly of abstinent behaviors, and less favorable opinions about sexual activity before marriage than did students who were not in abstinence programs.
"Students who are in these [abstinence education] programs are recognizing that abstinence is a positive choice," HHS Assistant Secretary Michael O'Grady said.
"Abstinence education programs that help our young people address issues of healthy relationships, self-esteem, decision-making, and effective communications are important to keeping them healthy and safe," O'Grady added…
To read the full article, please go to: http://www.lifenews.com/nat2630.html
RISING ABOVE THE GATHERING STORM: ENERGIZING AND EMPLOYING AMERICA FOR A BRIGHTER ECONOMIC FUTURE
This congressionally requested report—written by a 20-member committee that included university presidents, CEOs, Nobel Prize winners, and former presidential appointees—makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology (S&T) efforts on meeting the nation's need for clean, affordable, and reliable energy. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. The committee believes that ongoing evaluation of the results should be included in all of the measures.
Without a major push to strengthen the foundations of America's competitiveness, the United States could soon lose its privileged position. The ultimate goal is to create new, high-quality jobs for all citizens by developing new industries that stem from the ideas of exceptional scientists and engineers.
A brief overview of one of the four recommendations follows.
Ten Thousand Teachers, Ten Million Minds
Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education.
Among the recommended implementation steps is the creation of a merit-based scholarship program to attract 10,000 exceptional students to math and science teaching careers each year. Four-year scholarships, worth up to $20,000 annually, should be designed to help some of the nation's top students obtain bachelor's degrees in physical or life sciences, engineering, or mathematics—with concurrent certification as K-12 math and science teachers. After graduation, they would be required to work for at least five years in public schools. Participants who teach in disadvantaged inner-city or rural areas would receive a $10,000 annual bonus. Each of the 10,000 teachers would serve about 1,000 students over the course of a teaching career, having an impact on 10 million minds, the report says . . .
The report is available at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html#description
MEDIA EXPOSURE HURTS SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
A new study links poor school performance among middle school students with television viewing time and content. In "Association Between Television, Movie and Video Game Exposure and School Performance," researchers surveyed more than 4,500 middle school students (grades 5 through 8) about weekday and weekend television and video screen time, cable channel availability, parental R-movie and television content restriction, and school performance. According to the study, the odds of poor school performance increased with growing weekday television viewing and cable channel availability, and decreased with parental restriction on television content. Children who watched R-rated movies once in a while, sometimes, or all of the time had significantly increased odds of poor school performance. Weekend screen time and video game use were not linked with poor school performance. The findings support American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines pertaining to limited media time and content restrictions.
This article appears in the October issue of Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): http://www.pediatrics.org/STUDY CONFIRMA BELL SUMMER PROGRAM INCREASES CHILDREN'S READING SKILLS
The Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) Summer program featuring Houghton Mifflin curriculum significantly increases low-income children’s reading skills, according to a new Urban Institute study. Following a rigorous evaluation of children enrolled in BELL Summer in New York City and Boston, researchers concluded that children in the program improved their reading skills by about one month more than children in the control group.
Studies demonstrate that while all children learn at the same rate during the school year, children from low-income families lose the equivalent of two months’ literacy skills and two months’ math skills during the summer. In contrast, children from more affluent families actually gain skills from the opportunities that are available and encouraged for them. Compounded annually, these summer losses are a major reason why the academic achievement gap between low- and high-income children grows throughout the elementary school years, increasing from 65 percent in first grade to 96 percent in third grade.
BELL Summer provides children performing below grade-level with 240 hours of academic and social enrichment programming in New York City, Boston and Baltimore. Certified teachers implement scientifically based curricula from Great Source, and the Edusoft Assessment Management System from Riverside Publishing, both divisions of Houghton Mifflin. Children receive 72 hours of academic instruction in literacy and math, using Summer Success: Reading and Summer Success: Math to help close the academic achievement gap.
The Urban Institute’s Impacts of a Summer Learning Program report is available at http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411350.
SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN MORE LIKELY TO BE BULLIED
Children with special health care needs are more likely to be bullied, according to a new study. In "Bullying and Peer Victimization Among Children With Special Health Care Needs," researchers used National Survey of Children's Health data of more than 102,000 households with children, ages 6 to 17, to measure associations between children with special health care needs (approximately 21 percent of children in the study) and the likelihood of them being bullied, bullying other children, and being both a bully and a victim of bullying. The results showed that of the children with special health care needs, those with behavioral, emotional or developmental problems were more likely to bully and be bullied. Specifically, 55 percent of these children were reportedly bullied, 51 percent bullied other children, and 28 percent reported being both a bully and victim. The findings may help pediatricians, mental health care providers and school administrators to target screenings and interventions to address and prevent school bullying.
This article appears in the October issue of Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): http://www.pediatrics.org
GUIDE RATES WIDELY USED MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL REFORM MODELS
Ten of 18 school improvement models, used in thousands of middle and high schools, demonstrate promising evidence of raising student achievement, according to a first-of-its-kind comprehensive review of research on the models conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR).
According to a federally sponsored study released by AIR's Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center (CSRQ), four school improvement models received a "moderate" rating and an additional six received a "limited" rating. The consumer guide was released on Oct. 5, 2006 during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Education and Workforce Summit in Dallas, Texas.
Eight others received a "zero" rating in the study. Steve Fleischman, an AIR vice president and the CSRQ Center's director, emphasized that the research is still evolving on many of these approaches. These improvement models are frequently adopted in urban districts with large numbers of high poverty students, attending low performing schools. Given that the Center's standards "were deliberately set very high" and that many models are being tried in "schools with a history of low performance," the Center found it encouraging that more than half achieved a "limited" or "moderate" rating on their "evidence of positive overall effects" on student achievement.
To produce its ratings the Center reviewed nearly 1,500 research articles, abstracts, and summaries. Most were rejected as not scientifically rigorous enough to count for the consumer guide. Fleischman noted that "some models may be delivering results, but may not yet have had sufficient time to demonstrate their effectiveness through evidence that meets the No Child Left Behind Act's requirement for scientifically based research." However, Fleischman cautioned that "our review makes clear that any model that claims to improve student achievement will be increasingly challenged to demonstrate effectiveness based on rigorous studies."
The four school improvement models that received a "moderate" rating for boosting student achievement were:
The six with "limited" ratings were:
The eight that received "zero" ratings were:
With schools nationwide under increased pressure to improve or face sanctions, many low-performing districts have adopted system-wide school improvement models rather than relying on piecemeal reforms that affected only isolated schools or classrooms.
Fleischman noted that, "Our purpose in producing these consumer guides is not to pick winners and losers, but to give the public, the profession and policymakers solid information on which to make judgments about how best to improve schools."
The new guide employs the same standards and procedures that have been used in two previous Center reports, providing ratings based on the model's evidence of effectiveness and quality in five categories:
The Center said the evidence for the second and third categories was sparse, so it gave no ratings in those areas.
On the fourth category, the Center said 14 models had a "very strong" research basis for their approach to whole school improvement. The Coalition for Essential Schools had a "moderately strong" link and ATLAS Communities had evidence of a "limited" link. Two other models, Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) and Expeditionary Learning, received no rating because they did not participate in a conversation with the Center about the research behind their approaches.
Most models received "strong" or "very strong" ratings for professional development and readiness for implementation.
The Center observed that this review is needed, since it is difficult, even for experienced education researchers, to discern which research studies should carry the most weight. On the key question of whether studies supported a model's impact on student achievement, only 41 of the 190 studies were rigorous enough to count in the ratings. In contrast, the Center had twice as many solid studies on which to base the earlier ratings of elementary school reform models.
After noting that it gave most models strong marks for readiness to implement their reforms, the Center said, "Given the importance of implementation to the success of any whole-school reform, consumers who select models that have low rankings in evidence of effects on student outcomes may still experience success if the models are implemented faithfully."
The full report may be viewed on the Center's Web site, http://www.csrq.org/MSHSreport.asp
and on the AIR Web site, http://www.air.org
Also available are:
CSRQ Center Report on Elementary School CSR Models Many models reviewed in the CSRQ Center Report on Secondary School CSR Models also serve elementary schools and were reviewed in the CSRQ Center Report on Elementary School CSR Models. If you are interested in CSR or schoolwide improvement models at the elementary level, this report can be downloaded here: http://www.csrq.org/CSRQreportselementaryschoolreport.asp
CSRQ Center Report on Education Service Providers This report offers a scientifically-based consumer friendly review of the effectiveness and quality of 7 widely adopted Education Service Providers: http://www.csrq.org/espreport.asp
EDUCATION EXPERTS EXPOSE THE POLITICS BEHIND THE NATION'S SCHOOL FINANCE LAWSUITS
As the final ruling of one of the most contentious school finance lawsuits in the nation nears—New York’s Campaign for Fiscal Equity case—Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education releases Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges’ Good Intentions and Harm Our Children, edited by Eric A. Hanushek.
The complete text of Courting Failure is available online at www.KoretTaskForce.org.
Courting Failure exposes the politics behind the education “adequacy” lawsuits now sweeping the nation and challenges the flawed arguments behind many of the judicial decisions. These lawsuits charge that students fail to learn because public schools are underfunded. Given enough money, the argument goes, schools would be able to meet their state’s educational goals. This claim, however, lacks any real scientific proof to substantiate it and dramatically oversimplifies the problem.
The New York case, the authors say, is a model of notoriety in this kind of litigation and one of the motivations for the book. They claim it has become a leading example of critical errors in judicial judgment that are the result of political maneuvering and good intentions gone awry. And New York is by no means alone in this struggle over school finance. As of 2005, almost half the states had active “adequacy” cases in the courts at some stage of the judicial process. And only five states have never had a school finance court case in the past three decades.
”Even though our schools need improvement, these lawsuits are leading in the wrong direction and are actually thwarting more productive reforms,” explains Hanushek, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and member of the board of directors of the National Board for Education Sciences.
Here’s more from their news release:
One of the most devastating elements in these trials is the high-profile “costing out” studies used to calculate the price tag of an adequate education. None of the studies effectively deals with any of the inefficiencies that currently exist in public schools, presuming that what is needed to get the desired student outcomes is simply more of the same—and more money to support it. Indeed, some of the studies explicitly choose the most expensive way of running an educational program rather than the least expensive, inflating the costs and completely ignoring any possible change in the incentives or operations of public schools.
Unfortunately, the courts have frequently sided with these recommendations. Judges, bent on doing good but with little expertise with which to make sense of the science, or lack thereof, behind the studies, have used the findings to be very prescriptive in their orders, setting dangerous and costly precedents.
In New York City, for example, the trial judge declared that the current funding for operations and maintenance should be increased by $5.63 billion a year, an amount that would push spending to double the national average. In Wyoming, the legislature, under pressure from the courts, pushed state spending on education up to the fifth highest in the nation in 2003. Consultants hired by the legislature counseled that this spending was still substantially insufficient, leading to further massive increases in 2006. In Kansas, the court directed the legislature to appropriate the amount judged by the consultants to be necessary for adequacy in the state’s education system—a more than 20 percent increase.
In the end, these cases, whose full impact has yet to be felt, are unlikely to improve America’s public schools and may very likely hurt them.
10 Myths about School Finance Adequacy
1. MYTH: Courts, because they are not political, are the best place in which to make educational funding decisions.
FACT: Courts are very prone to politics, as shown in the dramatic events surrounding the New York City court case (Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. New York). Decisions of the courts reflected political pressures.
2. MYTH: The spending called for in court judgments in school finance adequacy cases is based on careful scientific analysis.
FACT: The attempts to “cost out” the resources needed for an adequate education violate standard scientific rules and instead are political documents aimed at increasing funding for schools. The consultants providing these estimates never predict that student outcomes will increase at all with the additional funds they identify as being required.
3. MYTH: Performance of U.S. schools has shown the importance of increased funding and resources.
FACT: U.S. performance has been flat for 35 years, despite more than tripling spending per student (after adjusting for inflation). Thus, past efforts to lower class size and to seek better teachers have not had a discernible impact.
4. MYTH: Improved student performance necessarily requires additional funding.
FACT: Schools should first focus on how current money is being spent rather than on the question of how much should be spent. For example, an important constraint on schools is the amount of time for student instruction. Good use of this time—involving sound academic curricula—does not generally cost more than bad use of the time but gets much better results.
5. MYTH: With sufficient funding, schools serving disadvantaged populations have shown success.
FACT: A number of school systems—Kansas City, Cambridge, New Jersey, “Abbott schools,” and others—have enjoyed very large infusions of resources but have failed to show any improved student outcomes, even with judicial monitoring and educator-designed programs.
6. MYTH: School districts currently direct additional funds to educate disadvantaged students.
FACT: Even though the adequacy lawsuits call for extra funding to go to disadvantaged students, most school systems do not have accurate data on what they currently spend on various students. Moreover, disadvantaged students frequently receive fewer, not more, resources.
7. MYTH: Schools serving high-poverty populations cannot succeed.
FACT: A large number of high-poverty schools have shown that they can attain high student achievement. These schools, which repeat these educational feats year after year, concentrate on educational solutions, not simple spending.
8. MYTH: Improved student outcomes have resulted from past finance lawsuits.
FACT: Very little analysis has gone into assessing the results of past lawsuits. In every case where such an assessment has been made, however, little or no effect on student achievement has been seen.
9. MYTH: School finance adequacy lawsuits are a straightforward extension of equity court cases.
FACT: Equity lawsuits that have been argued for more than three decades are based on variations in spending that might be inequitable. Adequacy lawsuits, by contrast, presume that all differences in student achievement are due to the schools and can be corrected by the schools, taking courts into areas in which they have no expertise.
10. MYTH: Private school performance is about the same as public school performance.
FACT: An analysis of private schools indicates that, although student achievement appears similar, private schools achieve these results with significantly fewer resources. One component of this is ensuring that students are deeply involved in their own education, something that happens less frequently in the public schools.
Eric A. Hanushek, editor of Courting Failure, is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He serves as a member of the board of directors of the National Board for Education Sciences. Contributors to Courting Failure include Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton, Eric A. Hanushek, E.D. Hirsch Jr., Alfred Lindseth, Paul E. Peterson, Marguerite Roza and Paul Hill, Sol Stern, and Herbert J. Walberg. On the basis of the findings of these analyses, the Koret Task Force makes a series of recommendations in the volume about how to truly improve our schools.
The members of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education are among America’s foremost education scholars, brought together by the Hoover Institution with the support of the Koret Foundation. More information about the group can be found at www.KoretTaskForce.org.
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ADVERTISING ON PRESCHOOL TELEVISION LINKS FOOD WITH HAPPINESS
A new study finds that the majority of food advertisements appearing during preschool television programs link food with happiness. In "Food-Related Advertising on Preschool Television: Building Brand Recognition in Young Viewers," researchers analyzed television programming, including advertisements and sponsor promotions, on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Disney and Nickelodeon between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the Spring of 2005. In 96 half-hour blocks of programming, the three networks had a total of 130 food-related advertisements. More than half of the advertisements or promotions were aimed specifically at children, with the majority promoting fast food restaurant chains or sweetened cereals. Most of the advertisements linked the various products with fun, happiness, excitement, and/or energy—building brand recognition and positive associations, not necessarily immediate sales—through various characters, logos and slogans. With child obesity rates increasing, the study authors recommend that pediatricians talk with parents about the effects of food advertising on young children.
This article appears in the October issue of Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): http://www.pediatrics.org
TEACHING STRATEGY YIELDS RESULTS
In Matt Stellmach's classroom at Bristol, CT’s Northeast Middle School and others around the city, student progress is not just recorded in a grade book. It is picked apart and analyzed. Stellmach's students keep track of their progress on a bulletin board at the back of the room, tacked to which is a poster with a series of bars labeled 'How are we doing?' The high water mark was February, when 81 percent of the students taking a monthly quiz met the class's goal. But in May, well into the 'spring slide,' as one student put it, only 66 percent met the goal.
'Who here thinks they're getting lazy?' asked Stellmach, scanning the room. 'Anybody want to blame me?'
Stellmach isn't being flip. He and other teachers believe the results are as much their responsibility as their students'. The initiative, known as data-driven decision-making, starts in the classroom, but teachers and administrators—from department heads to superintendents—are held accountable, too.
The approach, which relies on collaboration and data from quiz scores to attendance records, is rocking the bureaucratic, tradition-bound world of public education: http://www.topix.net/education. It also is bringing hope to jargon-weary educators grasping at ways to improve test scores and shed dire-sounding designations—and the sanctions that go with them—under the No Child Left Behind Act….
That's radical because, traditionally, when a teacher gave a test and not all the students got 100 percent of the questions right, it was the students' fault…
Bristol is at the forefront of the approach in Connecticut, and after years of honing their particular version of it, educators are seeing results. Two schools in the city of 60,000 are among a handful in the state removed this year from the dreaded federal list of those not making sufficient annual progress…
To see the rest of this article, please go to: http://www.topix.net/content/trb/4184343653153068317121899618751434508661
CHILDREN NEED UNDIRECTED PLAYTIME
In a report released recently, the American Academy Of Pediatrics said children need undirected playtime, which provides a creative outlet and allows them to learn important social skills. Many schools under pressure to raise test scores or provide structured physical activity time, however, have been scaling back recess or eliminating it altogether. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/eCjklewpBndQjAOAoh
To see the report, please go to: http://www.aap.org/pressroom/playFINAL.pdf
NEW REPORT FINDS SCHOOL VOUCHERS PROVIDE LESS SEGREGATED SCHOOLS
A new report from the conservative Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation finds that private schools participating in the Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington D.C. voucher programs are much less segregated than public schools. In addition, the report finds that segregation levels in private schools generally are not substantially different from those in public schools.
This report follows up on two recent, original studies released by the Foundation, which found private schools participating in the Cleveland and Milwaukee voucher programs to be 18 and 13 points less segregated than their public school counterparts.
“Private schools have more potential to desegregate students because they break down geographic barriers, drawing students together across neighborhood boundaries,” said the report’s author, Friedman Foundation Senior Fellow Greg Forster, Ph.D. “But this potential for desegregation in private schools is hindered because many students can’t afford private school. School vouchers overcome the monetary barrier, enabling private schools to make desegregation a reality.”
“Freedom from Racial Barriers: The Empirical Evidence on Vouchers and Segregation” collects the results of all available studies using valid empirical methods to compare segregation in public and private schools, both in general and in the context of school voucher programs.
The findings include:
“This report confirms that private schools in voucher programs are less segregated than public schools,” said Robert Enlow, executive director of the Friedman Foundation. “The plain truth is that the scare tactics of school choice opponents don’t hold up, particularly in light of the evidence that strongly suggests school choice can tear down the walls of segregation.”
The report, “Freedom from Racial Barriers,” can be downloaded at http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/segregation.pdf.
Information regarding the two Friedman Foundation studies on segregation levels in Milwaukee and Cleveland can be accessed at http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/news/2006-08-31.html
NATIONAL GROUPS URGE STEPS TO STRENGTHEN OHIO'S CHARTER SCHOOL PROGRAM
Bold reforms needed, say expert reviewers in report to state leaders.
Responding to an invitation from Ohio's top government and education leaders, three national organizations with extensive charter-school experience have called for closing low-performing charter schools and holding sponsors more accountable for oversight of the growing charter movement while also helping more high-performance schools to open and succeed in Ohio.
In return for sharply stepped-up accountability for all charter schools and sponsors, restrictions on the formation of high-quality charters should be removed, and charter schools should receive more equitable funding, urge the national experts leading the review.
These are among the 17 recommendations contained in Turning the Corner to Quality: Policy Guidelines for Strengthening Ohio's Charter Schools (http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=362), a report issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/global/index.cfm), National Association of Charter School Authorizers (http://www.charterauthorizers.org/site/nacsa/), and National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (http://www.publiccharters.org/). It is based on research and analysis conducted at the request of Governor Bob Taft, Senate President Bill Harris, House Speaker Jon Husted and Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Tave Zelman. These state leaders sought the national experts' advice on "steps Ohio might consider to increase the quality of education provided through the charter school choice option."
Turning the Corner to Quality seeks to help Ohio meet four broad goals:
The report's recommendations are based on an analysis of Ohio school performance data; a review of best practices in other states; input from experts in charter school finance, sponsorship, accountability and policy; and evaluation of dozens of policy options.
The complete text of Turning the Corner to Quality: Policy Guidelines for Strengthening Ohio's Charter Schools can be downloaded at http://www.edexcellence.net/, http://www.charterauthorizers.org/, or http://www.publiccharters.org/.
Click here to read the Overview of Recommendations:
http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=362&pubsubid=1387
SUCCESSFUL AND RESILIENT YOUTH
Two New AAP Books Help Parents Raise Children and Teens to Overcome Adversity, Stress, and Succeed
America’s youth have a major problem… and it’s not just sex, drugs or rock ‘n roll. They are under such tremendous stress that it’s damaging their physical health and psychological well being. Whether it’s stresses early in life typically tied to rushed families, over-scheduling of extracurricular activities, and goading by peers or, in the teen years, the anxiety and pressure related to getting into “the” college, the pressure on today’s youth begins at an increasingly early age and threatens individual children, families and society itself. In today’s pressure-cooker society, children and teens need to tap into their strengths, acquire specific skills to cope, recover from adversity, and be prepared for future challenges. They need to be resilient in order to succeed in life’s long haul. In an effort to spark national dialogue on stress and its effect on children and teens, two accomplished professionals—Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, MD, MS Ed, FAAP, a nationally recognized pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Marilee Jones, Dean of Admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—have joined forces with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to author two companion books that address the issue. The goal of each: provide parents, children, and adolescents with a range of support to strengthen a child’s resiliency skills so they can develop into dynamic, successful, and confident adults—a process that starts in early childhood and lasts through the admissions process and beyond. Both books are currently available online through the AAP and in bookstores nationwide starting in September.
Dr. Ginsburg’s “A Parent’s Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Your Child Roots and Wings,” provides parents with specific strategies to help their children:
In “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond,”
Jones and Dr. Ginsburg discuss why the college admissions process has become a time of extremely high stress and how that stress is having negative consequences on the emotional and physical health of young adults.
Jones and Dr. Ginsburg urge parents and youth to redefine success by talking about:
Together these books provide strategies for raising a generation of successful, competent, and well-rounded individuals.
For more information, including excerpts from the books, please go to: http://www.aap.org/stress/
ANNUAL METLIFE SURVEY REPORTS TEACHER CAREER SATISFACTION AT 20-YEAR HIGH, BUT PREPARATION AND SUPPORT REMAIN CHALLENGES
Despite the fact that teacher career satisfaction is at a 20-year high, lack of preparation and support threaten retention in the profession, according to the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, 2006: Expectations and Experiences.
MetLife has sponsored the American Teacher series since 1984. This year’s survey of K-12 teachers, principals, and deans and chairpersons in schools of education, conducted by Harris Interactive®, examines the state of the profession at key points throughout the lifecycle of a teacher’s career, from preparation in college and graduate school, to experiences in the nation’s K-12 schools. The 2006 survey looks at the expectations of teachers upon entering the profession, factors that drive career satisfaction, and the perspectives of principals and education leaders on successful teacher preparation and long-term support. In addition, it examines data collected from past MetLife American Teacher surveys to understand the challenges teachers face and their likelihood of remaining in the profession in order to recommend recruitment and retention strategies. Through focus groups of prospective and former teachers, also conducted by Harris Interactive, the report offers added insight about why individuals choose to enter the profession, and why some "opt out" early.
Key findings include:
About the 2006 MetLife Survey
Harris Interactive® conducted the 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher by phone between March 8 and April 6, 2006 with nationally representative samples of 1,001 public school teachers of grades K-12, 500 public school principals of grades K-12 and 200 education deans and department chairpersons within America’s colleges and universities. Data were weighted to reflect the total U.S. populations of teachers, principals, and education deans and chairpersons, respectively, and margin of error varies based on sample size and method used.
In addition, Harris Interactive conducted a series of focus groups among prospective teachers and former teachers in April 2006.
The 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher can either be downloaded from MetLife’s Web site at www.metlife.com/teachersurvey, downloaded at http://www.metlife.com/WPSAssets/81821402701160505871V1F2006MetLifeTeacherSurvey.pdf or obtained by writing to MetLife, ATT: Survey of the American Teacher, 27-01 Queens Plaza North, Long Island City, New York 11101.
JOSEPHSON INSTITUTE'S REPORT CARD ON AMERICAN YOUTH: 28% OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS STEAL; 60% CHEAT
According to the Josephson Institute’s 2006 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, today’s young people reveal deeply entrenched habits of dishonesty. The report, released as part of National CHARACTER COUNTS! Week (October 15-21) reveals high rates of cheating, lying and theft.
More than one in four (28%) of the 36,122 high school students surveyed admitted stealing from a store within the past year (32% males, 23% females). Twenty-three percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative; 81% confessed they lied to a parent about something significant and 39% said they lied to save money (47% males, 31% females).
Cheating in school continues to be rampant. A substantial majority (60%) cheated on a test during the past year (35% did so two or more times) and one in three (33%) said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment.
As bad as these numbers are, it appears they understate the level of dishonesty exhibited by America’s youth as 27% confessed they lied on at least one or two questions on the survey. Experts agree that dishonesty on surveys usually is an attempt to conceal misconduct.
Despite these high levels of dishonesty, these same kids have a high self image of their ethics. A whopping 92% said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character and 74% said that “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”
According to Michael Josephson, president and founder of the Institute and one of the nation’s top ethics experts, “The good news is that things aren’t getting any worse -- the 2006 results are almost identical to those reported in 2004. The bad news is that unacceptably high rates of dishonesty have become the norm. It doesn’t bode well for the future that so many kids are entering the workforce to become the next generation of corporate executives and cops, politicians and parents, journalists, teachers, and coaches with the dispositions and skills of liars, cheaters and thieves.”
Following a benchmark survey in 1992, the Josephson Institute has conducted a national survey of the ethics of American youth every two years. The 2006 data was gathered through a national sample of public and private high schools. Surveys were conducted in 2006. This report addresses honesty and integrity and is the first based on the extensive data gathered. Additional reports will be issued in the ensuing months focusing on violence, drug use and other issues and will analyze the impact on values, attitudes and behavior of sports, religious convictions and other factors.
About the Josephson Institute of Ethics
The Josephson Institute of Ethics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization based in Los Angeles, CA, created and administers the CHARACTER COUNTS! Coalition, a partnership of more than 700 educational and youth-serving organizations committed to improving the ethical quality of America’s young people through character education. CHARACTER COUNTS! is the nation’s most widely implemented approach to character education. Congress and most states have declared the third week in October National CHARACTER COUNTS! Week. An extensive library of materials for teachers, parents, coaches and others interested in character education as well as transcripts of Michael Josephson’s daily radio commentaries are available at no charge at www.charactercounts.org.
On the day your district administrators look at test scores, grades, and discipline referrals with gender in mind, some stunning patterns quickly will emerge.
Girls, they might find, are behind boys in elementary school math or science scores. They’ll find high school girls statistically behind boys in SAT scores. They might find, upon deeper review, that some girls have learning disabilities that are going undiagnosed.
Boys, they’ll probably notice, make up 80 to 90 percent of the district’s discipline referrals, 70 percent of learning disabled children, and at least two-thirds of the children on behavioral medication. They’ll probably find that boys earn two-thirds of the Ds and Fs in the district, but less than half the As. On statewide standardized test scores, they’ll probably notice boys behind girls in general. They may be shocked to see how far behind the boys are in literacy skills; nationally, the average is a year and a half.
The moment an administrator sees the disparity of achievement between boys and girls can be liberating. Caring about children’s education can now include caring about boys and girls specifically. New training programs and resources for teachers and school districts are opening cash-strapped school boards’ eyes, not just to issues girls and boys face but also to ways of addressing gender differences in test scores, discipline referrals, and grades…
To read the rest of this article, please go to: http://www.asbj.com/current/coverstory.html
U.S. ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS: EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITY OR REPLICATING THE STATUS QUO?
Although education pays off handsomely in the United States, children from low-income families attain less education than children from more advantaged families. In this article, Cecilia Elena Rouse and Lisa Barrow investigate why family background is so strongly linked to education.
The authors show that family socioeconomic status affects such educational outcomes as test scores, grade retention, and high school graduation, and that educational attainment strongly affects adult earnings. They then go on to ask why children from more advantaged families get more or better schooling than those from less advantaged families. For low-income students, greater psychological costs, the cost of forgone income (continuing in school instead of getting a job), and borrowing costs all help to explain why these students attain less education than more privileged children. And these income-related differences in costs may themselves be driven by differences in access to quality schools. As a result, U.S. public schools tend to reinforce the transmission of low socioeconomic status from parents to children.
Policy interventions aimed at improving school quality for children from disadvantaged families thus have the potential to increase social mobility. Despite the considerable political attention paid to increasing school accountability, as in the No Child Left Behind Act, along with charter schools and vouchers to help the children of poor families attend private school, to date the best evidence suggests that such programs will improve student achievement only modestly.
Based on the best research evidence, smaller class sizes seem to be one promising avenue for improving school quality for disadvantaged students. High teacher quality is also likely to be important. However, advantaged families, by spending more money on education outside school, can and will partly undo policy attempts to equalize school quality for poor and nonpoor children.
To read the article, please go to: http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/06_5563_Rouse-Barrow.pdf
FOR MATH STUDENTS, SELF-ESTEEM MIGHT NOT EQUAL HIGH SCORES
It is difficult to get through a day in an American school without hearing maxims such as these: "To succeed, you must believe in yourself," and "To teach, you must relate the subject to the lives of students."
But the Brookings Institution is reporting that countries such as the United States that embrace self-esteem, joy and real-world relevance in learning mathematics are lagging behind others that don't promote all that self-regard.
Consider Korea and Japan.
According to the Washington think tank's annual Brown Center report on education, 6 percent of Korean eighth-graders surveyed expressed confidence in their math skills, compared with 39 percent of U.S. eighth-graders. But a respected international math assessment showed Koreans scoring far ahead of their peers in the United States, raising questions about the importance of self-esteem…
To read the full article, please go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701298.html
To read the Brown Center report, please go to: http://www.brook.edu/gs/brown/bc_report/2006/2006report.htm
BEAT THE ODDS . . . WHY SOME SCHOOLS WITH LATINO CHILDREN BEAT THE ODDS AND OTHERS DON'T
In 2001, the Morrison Institute for Public Policy released its landmark report, "Five Shoes Waiting to Drop on Arizona's Future," (http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison/apc2001.htm) which identified one "shoe" as a huge hole in Arizona's educational system - the lack of educational success of Latinos. The report reminded Arizonans that Latinos are fast becoming the majority in public schools and that they suffer from low achievement gains and graduation rates. The report also reminded Arizonans that education is the key to prosperity--for individuals, for families and for the State of Arizona as a whole. Without a successful turn around in Latino education, Arizona simply will not make a successful transition to the 21st-Century economy. This awareness eventually led to a new study—“Beat the Odds”—research on high performing Latino schools.
Using the methodology of Jim Collins (http://www.arizonafuture.org/latinoEd/jim-collins.html) from his book Good to Great , Mary Jo Waits (http://www.arizonafuture.org/latinoEd/maryjo-waits.html) and her research team, under the sponsorship of the Center for the Future of Arizona and the Morrison Institute (http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison/), found 12 elementary and middle schools in Arizona—schools whose students are mostly Latino and mostly poor - that are "beating the odds" on reading and math scores.
With Jim Collins' active involvement, the research team found six keys to success that can translate into broader messages for education policy and strategy. These are clear bottom line, ongoing assessment, strong, steady principal, collaborative solutions, stick with the program and built to suit. Describing this study as the "second wave" of education reform, the authors have recommended a package of policy changes and strategic initiatives aimed at engaging policy makers and empowering educators with the tools and skills necessary to help students succeed. Key among the recommendations is the creation of leadership programs for principals and teachers, with the goal of sharpening analytic skills and creating collaborative environments that allow effective, knowledge-based and customized education within schools and classrooms. The study calls for the creation of a dissemination mechanism to bring "best practices" into every school in Arizona.
Read the study: http://www.asu.edu/copp/morrison/LatinEd.pdf
SCIENTISTS: VIDEO GAMES CAN RESHAPE EDUCATION
Scientists call it the next great discovery, a way to captivate students so much they will spend hours learning on their own. It's the new vision of video games.
The Federation of American Scientists — which typically weighs in on matters of nuclear weaponry and government secrecy — declared Tuesday that video games can redefine education.
Capping a year of study, the group called for federal research into how the addictive pizazz of video games can be converted into serious learning tools for schools…
To read the rest of the article, please go to: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2006-10-17-gaming-education_x.htm
To read the full report, please go to: http://fas.org/gamesummit/Resources/Summit%20on%20Educational%20Games.pdf
MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS SEEK HOMEWORK HELP FROM PARENTS
New research commissioned by LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. (in conjunction with the National Education Association reveals that nearly nine in ten (86 percent) middle school students say that they still turn to their parents for homework help. These and other results of “The Great Homework Divide Survey” illustrate the reliance of tweens—widely recognized as children ages 9 through 12—on regular parent involvement. This finding is contrary to the conventional wisdom that tweens are eager to exercise their budding independence.
Parents’ and students’ responses indicate that they are both struggling to adjust to the demands of the middle school workload, which is both heavier and more varied than typical grade school assignments:
“Middle school is an ideal time for parents to recommit to their children’s academic success by fostering positive attitudes about homework,” said NEA President Reg Weaver. “Children can learn to approach the heavier homework load responsibly. And parents can act as motivators to encourage their children’s critical thinking skills and help develop fundamental study habits that will serve them for life.”
Students perform better in school when their parents are actively involved in their education. Parents can play a role in their children’s success by providing a support system for meeting homework requirements. In fact, the survey found that on average, parents reported spending close to three hours a week helping their middle school-aged children with homework. And nearly one-half of parents agree they would assist their middle school children even more with homework if they knew how.
Interestingly, the degree to which parents are reportedly involved in their children’s homework struggles does not necessarily spell success, as almost half of middle school students (48 percent) say they have gone to school without finishing their homework because it was too difficult or because they could not find anyone to help them. It may be that middle school students need a new kind of help that parents cannot provide.
Technology Can Serve as Homework Helper
For parents who may feel challenged as to how best to support their middle school students’ developing study habits, technology may be a solution for homework-challenged children. A majority of parents agree that technology can serve many important homework-help functions, especially when the ease of the Internet is combined with teachers’ expertise:
“Technology has already begun to change today’s classroom, and parents are uniquely positioned to bring that transformation full circle by providing children access to complementary resources at home,” said Jessie Woolley-Wilson, Executive Vice President of LeapFrog and President of LeapFrog SchoolHouse. “As their children’s curriculum advances, parents are struggling to find the most effective ways to enhance the homework experience. Personal learning tools, such as LeapFrog’s FLY Pentop Computer, can help empower students to tackle their homework effectively and independently.”
LeapFrog and the NEA’s Parent Guide to Better Homework Help Sets the Stage for Learning Success
Today’s middle school students are receiving more homework, which means they need more than ever to develop and hone their organization and time management skills. The best way to support homework efforts is to help children design a framework within which they can do their best work with an increasing degree of independence:
More tips for bridging the Great Homework Divide can be found online at www.nea.org/parent
STUDY FINDS THAT STUDENTS IN VOC-ED CLASSES WITH ENHANCED MATH PERFORMED BETTER ON TESTS
Study results could have profound impact on schools nationwide
In a study led by the University of Minnesota, researchers have found that high school students who took vocational education classes with enhanced mathematics instruction performed significantly better on standardized math tests than students in a control group.
The results of this study could have profound impact on schools and their curriculum for vocational education classes, which are now called Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes, said James Stone III, U of M professor and director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE). The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education funded the study, titled "Building Academic Skills in Context: Testing the Value of Enhanced Math Learning in Career and Technical Education."
The experimental study, which was conducted during the 2004-2005 school year, involved more than 3,000 students in nine states. It was designed to test a model for enhancing math instruction in CTE courses emphasizing the math that is already embedded in the CTE curriculum. CTE teachers assigned to the control group used the traditional curriculum while CTE teachers in the experimental group partnered with math teachers to create a math enhanced CTE curriculum. Students were pre-tested on their math skills at the beginning of the year and post-tested at the end of the year.
"The study found that schools could have a significant effect on students' grasp of mathematics without investing enormous amounts of time," Stone said. Teachers spent about 10 percent of classroom instructional time teaching the enhance CTE lessons. To learn how to enhance the embedded math, teachers spent five days in the summer at a professional development workshop to learn the pedagogy and create their lessons, then five more days during the course of the year develop new lessons and to refine existing ones.
"When we examined the test results of students in our study, the experimental kids significantly outperformed the control kids," Stone said.
It is important for schools to acknowledge the amount of mathematics that exists within CTE classes and to enhance instruction in context, because many high school students do not have the math skills necessary for today's jobs and college entrance requirements, Stone said.
"Our goal was to help kids master the math necessary for them to be successful in their work arena and not decrease their technical skills. But, it also improved their achievement on math tests," Stone said.
In the researchers' model for improving math skills, they simply emphasized the math already within the curriculum. Teachers worked to make math more explicit in a meaningful context. That means that the math usually found in textbooks is applied in real-life situations in their CTE classes. For example, in a building trades class, they will use the Pythagorean theorem as they construct a building.
A key to the enhanced math success involved teacher professional development workshops and the partnering of CTE teachers and math teachers to create their own enhanced lessons.
The study is available at: http://www.nccte.org/publications/infosynthesis/r&dreport/MathLearningFinalStudy.pdf
Also available: Does Career and Technical Education Affect College Enrollment?
http://www.nccte.org/publications/infosynthesis/r&dreport/DoesCTEAffectCollegeEnrollment.pdf
RESEARCH OFFERS LESSONS FOR IMPROVING LOW-PERFORMING HIGH SCHOOLS
Studies Address Five Challenges Facing Educators
A new report from MDRC, Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform: Lessons from Research on Three Reform Models, offers research-based lessons for helping low-performing high schools, which are the focus of increased concern by federal, state, and local policymakers. MDRC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization focused on education and social policy.
Dropout rates at American high schools remain stubbornly high — estimated at 29 percent nationally and even higher for African-American and Hispanic students. In fact, 46 percent of African-American students and 39 percent of Hispanic students attend high schools where graduation is no better than a 50-50 proposition. And too many high school students who do manage to graduate aren’t ready for the worlds of work and college. For instance, 28 percent of all students entering public two-and four-year colleges in the fall of 2000 had to take remedial courses.
Recent research on three high school reform models — Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development — offers hope that programs can improve low-performing high schools. Together, these three interventions are being implemented in more than 2,500 high schools across the country, and various components of these models are being used in thousands more schools. Each model has been the subject of rigorous evaluation by MDRC, and each has been shown to improve some measures of student success. The new report offers lessons from across these three studies on:
In short, the report asserts that structural changes and instructional improvement are the twin pillars of high school reform. MDRC’s research suggests that transforming schools into small learning communities and assigning students to faculty advisors can increase students’ feelings of connectedness to their teachers. Extended class periods, special catch-up courses, high-quality curricula, and training on these curricula for teachers can improve student achievement. Furthermore, school-employer partnerships that involve career awareness activities and work internships can help students attain higher earnings after high school.
In addition, students who enter ninth grade behind academically can make better progress if initiatives single them out for special support. These supports include caring teachers and special courses designed to help them to acquire the content knowledge and learning skills they missed out on in earlier grades. Freshman Academies housed in a separate part of the building may also be helpful.
Developed for an audience of policymakers and practitioners, MDRC’s new research synthesis looks inside the “black box” of the three comprehensive reforms to draw reasoned conclusions about which particular aspects of the interventions made them effective (or, in some cases, proved ineffective). At the same time, because each reform model was evaluated as an integrated entity, conclusions about the effectiveness of particular components of the initiatives can never be as solidly grounded as conclusions about the impact of each program as a whole.
“Whether districts and schools adopt a comprehensive reform initiative like the ones MDRC studied or put together the elements of a comprehensive intervention on their own, much has been learned about what is needed — and what seems to work,” noted report author Janet Quint. “What remains is to make sure that practitioners have the support they need to put that learning into practice.”
Executive Summary: http://www.mdrc.org/publications/428/execsum.html
Full Report: http://www.mdrc.org/publications/428/full.pdf
LOW MINORITY GRADUATION RATES AND RISING MINORITY POPULATION JEOPARDIZE U.S. ECONOMIC FUTURE, ACCORDING TO ALLIANCE FOR EXCELLENT EDUCATION
The nation’s future economic well-being will considerably weaken unless it increases the percentage of minority students who graduate from high school to at least the level of their white peers, according to calculations by the Alliance for Excellent Education in its new issue brief, Demography as Destiny: How America Can Build a Better Future, funded by MetLife Foundation.
In the brief, the Alliance projects that if the U.S. education system could raise minority high school graduation rates to the current level of whites, and if those new graduates go on to postsecondary education at similar rates, additional personal income would be more than $310.4 billion by 2020, yielding additional tax revenues and a considerably improved economic picture.
Nationwide, the growth of the non-white population is outpacing that of the overall population, resulting in a dramatic demographic shift already in progress that will continue in coming years. Because the graduation rates of African-American and Hispanic students, in particular, are lower than that of whites (56 percent of African-American students and 52 percent of Hispanic students graduate high school in the standard four years, compared to 78 percent of white students), the negative outcome of the demographic change will be a steadily rising percentage of Americans without high school diplomas if the situation goes unaddressed.
Demography as Destiny: How America Can Build a Better Future is available at http://www.all4ed.org/publications/demography.pdf. Increased income figures were estimated using population projections and earning estimates based on education levels of attainment by the U.S. Census.
VERMONT NAMED NATION'S SMARTEST STATE
Education State Rankings 2006-2007: http://www.morganquitno.com/booksinfoED.htm
The Smartest State Award is based on 21 key elementary and secondary education indicators reported from Education State Rankings, an annual reference book that compares the 50 United States in hundreds of education-related categories. The 2006 award measures states based on factors including expenditures for instruction, pupil-teacher ratios, high school graduation and dropout rates, and reading, writing and math proficiency.
Rounding out the top five states with Vermont were Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maine. Bringing up the lower end of the rankings scale were Arizona in last place, preceded by Nevada, Mississippi, California and Alaska.
Additional information about the fifth annual Smartest State Award, including rankings for all 50 states (http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank06.htm) , a list of factors used to determine the results and an explanation of methodology (http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank06.htm#METHODOLOGY) , is available directly from Morgan Quitno Press at www.statestats.com
THE BRUCE RANDOLPH STORY: SCHOOL REFORM THAT WORKS
School reform is working at Denver's Bruce Randolph Middle School. In the 2005-06 school year, the school's seventh and eighth graders more than doubled their reading, writing, and math CSAP scores following two years of "unsatisfactory" ratings on the state's school report cards.
The Bruce Randolph Story is one of hope, high expectations, and hard work. It is a story of changing student achievement by changing how a school works.
A year ago, Bruce Randolph Middle School was in crisis. The school serves primarily low-income students—more than 93 percent qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Teachers felt isolated and ineffective, gang violence overshadowed learning, and the school was a step away from being closed and converted to a charter school by the state.
Cole Middle School in Denver had already met this fate in 2004. Thus, the state "takeover" of Bruce Randolph was not just an idle threat. Fortunately, for the students, families, and staff at Bruce Randolph, change was just ahead.
Morey Middle School principal Kristin Waters and Teacher-Literacy Coach Chrisanne Lahue had helped lift that school's state ranking from low to high in three years. Waters and Lahue decided they could help Bruce Randolph in the same way—using best practices promoted by the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning—common vision, clear and universal expectations, careful planning and evaluation of teaching goals, a supportive professional development environment.
The two developed a plan they called Challenge 2010, looking ahead to the anticipated graduation of the first group of Randolph students who would be educated with it. Waters and Lahue then went to Bruce Randolph and formed a new leadership team that includes Taylor Betz, Math-Science Teacher and Coach; Literacy Teacher and Coach Jennifer Swinehart; and Assistant Principal Cesar Cedillo. Lahue, Betz, and Swinehart are Denver Classroom Teachers Association members.
One year later, all staff members, including administrators, teachers, clerical staff, and custodians, plus parents and students are clear about academic and behavioral expectations. Educational best practices are faithfully implemented, grounded in a rigorous curriculum. Teachers are continually working on their practice, using student assessment data to focus their teaching on their students' needs. The students themselves are aware of their own learning and can articulate what they know and what they need to work on. And not only have the constant discipline problems stopped, but the students actually confess that they look forward to coming to school.
And while the 2006 CSAP scores have not yet been released, internal tests and assessments show remarkable growth among the seventh and eighth grade students. During the school year, average reading and writing scores soared:
Turning the school around in a year took nothing less than a complete sea change in the way schools are typically run, according to Bruce Randolph's leadership team. It meant radically changing the school climate, teaching, and learning by adopting and following these principles:
Common Vision and Commitment: Everyone at Bruce Randolph was "on the same page"—the staff's common vision was to "focus like a laser beam on student achievement," with every person in the school committed to implementing the reform plan, including principals, teachers, clerical staff, custodians, parents, students, and the community.
Leadership with an Empowering Operating Philosophy: School leaders empowered teachers to maximize student achievement through a two-pronged approach. First, the principal removed administrative barriers and time-wasting minutia to free up teacher time. Second, the leadership team provided meaningful professional development and coaching that directly related to teacher and student needs and created a supportive, collegial environment.
Consistent and Defined Expectations: Well-defined academic, procedural, and behavioral expectations were adopted school wide. These included class starting and ending procedures, work format, and misbehavior consequences. The consistency served to take the guesswork out of school for students, allowing them to focus on learning.
Rigorous Curriculum with High Minimum Standards: Bruce Randolph adopted a fully developed, data-driven program on every level. First, the team added reading comprehension and writing components to a curriculum they felt was lacking. Then, student assessment became the key factor in determining teaching strategy.
Teachers started school by administering a series of tests to form a baseline data for students, and throughout the year, students took unit pre- and post-tests and quarterly exams, and completed graded assignments and projects. Students never did another assignment without first getting feedback on what they already did. This data was distributed to students and parents in weekly progress reports and provided a roadmap for teachers creating lesson plans to meet students' needs.
Active Student Involvement in Learning: Teachers helped students take on responsibility for their own learning through quarterly, individual goal-setting meetings. Teacher and student reviewed previous goals and progress, identified academic strengths to capitalize on, focused on areas for improvement, determined tools and strategies to use, and used concrete examples so the student had a clear understanding of what "proficient" work would look like.
Full report: http://www.coloradoea.org/media/Bruce%20Randolph.pdf
RECENT RESEARCH ON THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP
…How do you define “achievement gap”?
There are a lot of different achievement gaps. The achievement gap that I focus the most on is the gap between students of different racial groups whose parents have roughly the same amount of education. It concerns me that black kids whose parents have college degrees on average have much lower test scores than white kids whose parents have college degrees, for example. You can take just about any level of parental education and we have these big gaps.
How much progress has been made in closing black-white achievement gaps?
Huge progress since 1970, not much progress since 1990. Sixty-two percent of the overall black-white reading-score gap for 17-year-olds disappeared between 1971 and 1988. About one-third of the math-score gap disappeared during the same period. Over the last several years the gap has narrowed significantly for both 9- and 13-year-olds, but there’s been a bit of backsliding for the older teens.
There’s been enough progress to establish firmly that these gaps are not written in stone. Even IQ gaps are narrowing. Measurements of the intelligence of kids less than one year old show virtually no racial or social-class differences, yet racial and social class achievement gaps are firmly established by the time students start kindergarten. Something happens before kindergarten that produces differences in proficiency.
Achievement gaps are not facts of nature. They are mostly because of differences in life experience. We’ve got to figure out how to get all kids the kinds of experiences that really maximize access to middle-class skills. That’s the challenge…
To read the full article, and see the numerous links, please go to: http://www.edletter.org/current/ferguson.shtml
2005 STUDENT HEALTH SURVEY: LESS SMOKING AND DRINKING, MORE SEATBELT USE
Fewer New Jersey high school students say that they smoke, drink alcohol and carry weapons, and more of them say they always wear a seat belt, according to the results of the 2005 Student Health Survey.
The survey was completed by 1,495 students at 29 public high schools in the spring of last year. The high schools were randomly selected and had to agree to participate, and student participation was also voluntary and required parental consent.
Students answered questions about their health-related behavior in six areas that are closely related to preventable illness and injury among young people: unintentional injuries (safety) and violence; the use of tobacco; the use of alcohol and drugs; sexual behavior; dietary behavior; and physical activity.
The 2005 overall participation rate was sufficient to obtain a weighted sample representative of all regular public school students in grades 9 through 12 in the state. This meant that the New Jersey information could be included in the federal Centers for Disease Control national report.
It also permitted comparisons between the 2005 results and answers students gave in the 2001 and 1995 surveys, which were the two other recent years in which a representative sample was obtained in New Jersey.
“We’re very pleased to see that that young people are reporting less risky behavior in many of the areas covered by the survey,” acting Commissioner Davy said. “The decrease in smoking and drinking and the increase in seatbelt use tell us that the messages being sent about these matters seem to be getting through.”
Key findings in the survey include:
For the first time in the spring of 2005, DOE also administered a shorter version of the Student Health Survey to seventh- and eight-grade students. The middle school survey covered similar topics, excluding sexual behavior. Thirty middle schools out of the 36 selected in the sample agreed to participate, and 1,409 students out of a possible 2,156 completed the survey.
Since these participation rates did not meet the minimum standards set by the CDC, the data could not be weighted to reflect the statewide population and could not be included in the national survey. In addition, since this is the first time the survey was administered, no historic comparisons can be made.
Key findings in the middle school survey include:
The summary report, the detailed report (including the questionnaire and an appendix) and the data tables can be found online here: http://www.nj.gov/njded/students/yrbs/
STUDY TAKES A SHARP LOOK AT NEW YORK CITY'S FAILING STUDENTS
The first comprehensive look at New York City’s failing students has found that nearly 140,000 people from ages 16 to 21 have either dropped out of high school or are already so far behind that they are unlikely to graduate…
The study is the school system’s latest effort to try to grapple with one of its most basic problems: a low graduation rate. City figures indicate that 58.2 percent of students graduate in four years, although the state, which counts on-time graduation differently, puts that number at 43.5 percent. Other school systems are also examining their low graduation rates; on Thursday, researchers from Johns Hopkins University released a report on Philadelphia’s high school dropouts….
The study found that students who fall behind in the number of credits they are expected to accumulate have a difficult time getting back on track at traditional high schools. Of the class of 2003’s dropouts, the study found that 93 percent fell behind in their credits at some point, indicating that their chief problem may not be the state requirement that all graduates pass a series of Regents exams. By contrast, only 19 percent of those who graduated had fallen significantly behind in their credits at any point.
There are 68,000 students ages 16 to 21 who have dropped out of school, the study found, but there are 70,000 who are still enrolled even though they are behind in their credits….
Many students fall behind after coming to high school with insufficient reading and math skills, the study found, indicating shortcomings in the city’s middle schools. But 30 percent of students who eventually fall behind begin their freshman years with proficient or nearly proficient reading skills, suggesting that high schools are also to blame. Boys are more likely than girls to drop out, the study found, and black and Hispanic students are more likely to drop out than whites and Asians…
To read the entire article, please go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/22dropout.html?em&ex=1161835200&en=d1ac339203f97545&ei=5087%0A
"LACK OF INTEREST" AMONG LEADING REASONS TEENS DON'T PARTICIPATE IN AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS, ACCORDING TO NEW POLL
Cost and Transportation Not Cited as Major Factors
Four-in-ten teens (40.5%) who do not attend after-school programs say it is because they simply are not interested in what is being offered, according to a new poll from JA WorldwideTM. In contrast, about one-in-ten teens say they do not participate because of cost (11.9%) or lack of transportation (11.6%). Overall, 44.7 percent of respondents say they attend after-school programs other than sports, while 55.3 percent do not. Of those teens who do participate in after-school programs, nearly two-thirds (62.1%) do so at their schools, such as in a gym or cafeteria; nearly one-in-five (18.1%) participate at a church or place of worship; and fewer than one-in-ten (8.6%) participate in a traditional after-school setting, such as a YMCA, Boys & Girls Club or similar facility.
The survey of 1,200 youths between the ages of 13 and 18 was conducted by Newton Research for JA Worldwide in March 2006. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
When asked what factors would increase their interest in after-school activities, the overwhelming majority of teens said they would be interested in after-school programs that offer opportunities for college scholarships (94.3%), followed by programs where they can earn college credit (92.1%). Teens were also interested in programs that help them perform better in school (76.8%), develop leadership skills (76.4%), teach them how to work with money and budgets (75.6%) and how to run a business (69.1%).
MAINTENANCE REQUIRED: CHARTER SCHOOLING IN MICHIGAN
Michigan's public schools face their own competition in the form of public charter schools. Since 1993, when Michigan became one of the first states in the nation to enact charter legislation, the number of charter schools has grown exponentially in the state. Today Michigan has 230 charter schools that serve nearly 100,000 students, or more than 5 percent of the student population.
Some of the state's charter schools are excellent and have provided more educational choices for Michigan families. But charter schooling is controversial in Michigan. Opponents are critical of the dominant role that for-profit educational management organizations (EMOs) play in Michigan's charter schools. EMOs, some of which have been plagued by allegations of corruption and profiteering, run nearly 75 percent of charter schools in Michigan. Nationally, only one in four charter schools is run by an EMO.
Established education interests have decried the fact that the majority of the state's charter schools have been authorized by the state's public universities because the universities have been willing to authorize large numbers of charter schools that compete directly with traditional public schools. Local and regional school boards, in contrast, have been hesitant to authorize charter schools that would compete with the boards' own schools. A proposal to create 15 new charter schools in Detroit in 2003 drew protests from more than 3,000 public school teachers who skipped work to march on the state capital.
Some charter schools have been hit with charges of teaching religion at taxpayer expense, and many charter schools suffer from poor student performance. Michigan's charter schools perform only marginally better than the state's urban school districts—and well below statewide averages.
Despite that, demand for charter schools from parents seeking educational alternatives for their children remains high and proponents would like to increase the number of charter schools available. But in 1999, university-authorized charter schools reached their statutory cap of 150. Since then, proponents have lobbied the legislature to allow more university-authorized charter schools, but have been unsuccessful in their efforts. This has constrained the overall growth of charter schools in Michigan.
It is unlikely that there will be any successful move to increase the number of charter schools that universities can authorize until Michigan's existing charter schools deliver better student performance, authorizers can ensure adequate oversight, and EMOs are held publicly accountable.
Michigan's charter school sector has tremendous potential, but achieving that potential will require significant maintenance.
A new report examines both the achievements and shortfalls of Michigan's experiment in charter schooling. It reviews Michigan's charter school legislation and the evolution of charter schools in the state. It describes the state's charter school sector today and evaluates the performance of the state's 230 schools. It explores the problems of quality and other challenges facing Michigan's charter schools, and it offers recommendations for improvement.
Please download the full 32-page report below to read about Michigan's charter school law, characteristics, authorizers, challenges, and recommendations for improvement: http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/Michigan_Charter_Schools.pdf
A similar report on Florida’s charter schools is available at: http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/Florida_Charter_School_Report.pdf
THE FUTURE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS UNIONS: RESULTS OF A SYMPOSIUM
Over the past fifteen years, charter schools and teachers unions have battled in state legislatures, the courts, and the media. But with increasing frequency, the two groups are facing each other in the everyday operation of schools. Will on-the-ground experiences change charter schools or unions? Will existing conflicts only spread, or will direct experience lead to some moderation within each party?
To begin to answer such questions, the National Charter School Research Project and the Progressive Policy Institute convened a meeting of local, state, and national leaders from both the charter school and teachers union communities.
The report makes the case that if relations are to improve, three things are needed. First, to help ground the discussion in facts, we need better evidence about the charter school teaching force and the impact of chartering on issues that matter to teachers. Second, more exemplars and models of effective union-charter partnerships can help show how important problems can be solved. Finally, both groups could engage in confidence-building measures to demonstrate their desire to make progress, not just give the appearance of openness. On the part of charter school advocates, such measures could include acknowledging instances of irresponsible charter school labor practices and working for common standards for fair and respectful teacher employment. For their part, teachers unions cannot be seen as credible collaborators while they campaign to repeal or cap charter laws.
Download Full Report: http://www.ncsrp.org/downloads/charter_unions.pdf
Related reports also available:
• High-Quality Charter Schools at Scale in Big Cities: Results of a Symposium: http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/print/csr_docs/pubs/scaleup_bc.htm
• Key Issues in Studying Charter Schools and Achievement: A Review and Suggestion for National Guidelines: http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/print/csr_docs/pubs/achieve_wp.htm
THE 2006 BROWN CENTER REPORT ON AMERICAN EDUCATION: HOW WELL ARE OUR STUDENTS LEARNING?
The 2006 Brown Center Report on American Education uses the latest and bes